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Thursday, 26 March 2015

Improving Your Memory

byFrederike Rademacher

As many of us know, exams are right around the corner
and the pressure of trying to remember up to three years' worth of information
is building. We begin to stress out when we cant remember something that we
were taught previously. Panic. However, improving your memory intake is a lot
easier then it sounds. We often think of our memory as unchanging and
stationary in its development, yet just as we are able to improve everyday
skills such as maths or sports through practice, we can also improve our
memory.

We have two types of memory, long term and short term. We
use our short term memory for everyday things like memorising people's names
after meeting them for the first time. Research has shown that we are only able
to hold about seven pieces of short term information at one time. Overload the
short term memory and something must go. Long term memory is used for
remembering past events and memories. Long term memory is used for remembering
things that aren't needed instantly.

Your body is a temple. So healthy body means healthy
brain, healthy brain means better memory. Anything that helps improve your
brain's health automatically increases your memory intake; therefore, eating
right, sleeping enough and stimulation through brain exercises such as puzzles.
If you want to improve memory you need to really want it, concentrate on it to
help embed the information you want to remember further.

1. Focus

We're
all guilty of trying to multitask whilst trying to revise that we end up
forgetting the most well known aspect of revising: paying attention.
Information requires time to engrave itself into our memory, so if it doesn’t
make it into your memory recalling it again is close to impossible. If you quit
multitasking then focusing becomes all the more easier.

2. Smell,
touch, see, taste and hear

Although
obvious, the more of our senses we involve the easier it is to recall or
memorise something. The memory become much more potent; that's why we are able
to recall smells from our early childhood and associate them with things that
we smell nowadays. So if and when revising for a language, hear the word by
repeating it, rewrite it, say it out loud. By doing so you engage multiple
senses, increasing memory intake.

3. Repeat it

Repetition
helps to memorise information, this is known as over learning. Repetition is
effective because it allows an individual to emphasis on words or ideas. Yet
cramming doesn’t help as we end up overloading the brain with one idea.
Remember what I said about short term memory only able to hold seven pieces of
information at a time? Well if you try and fill all those spaces with one piece
of information then you’re left with no room at all for other information

4. Segment

How
are we able to memorise long phone numbers off by heart? We divide it into
chunks that are more easily memorable, even though our short term memory is
supposedly only able to hold seven pieces of information. We've been doing this
automatically since birth, taking large bits of information and separating them into smaller more manageable chunks. This helps us to focus more on memorising
those chunks as separate pieces.

5. Organise

Even
if you are messy, our brains like things ordered and organised. Keeping things
organised keeps it in focus; you aren't distracted by the mess of things as
everything is direct. This aids the brain to embed the information in the first
place.

6. Mnemonics

This
helps us remember things through imagery. By adding in imagery we engage
another one of our senses, even being able to visualise things in our head acts
as us seeing them. This is great for when trying to memorise long words or
equations.

7. Link Up

By
associating different bits of information with each other we form stronger
connections that allow us to memorise the information better and how it
relates to one another. Research has shown that by making associations you make
your memory stronger, especially when you first take the information in. When
linking two things together, you increase the memory for both bits of
information. I suggest connecting new information with old ones in your mind.